Latest Lessons

Stephen Stills’ status as a rock legend stems just as much from his singing and songwriting contributions in Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young) and his own solo work as it does from his innovative acoustic and electric guitar offerings.

Today, GuitarWorld.com presents an exclusive playthrough video of Iron Maiden's "The Trooper," as performed by Iron Maidens guitarists Nita Strauss, left, and Courtney Cox. The video, which you can check out below, shows some extremely up-close fret- and camerawork.

Of all my musical influences, classical violinist Niccolo Paganini has to be on top of the list. Though he lived in the late 18th century (long before image became as important in the making and marketing of musicians as their actual music), his extreme personal magnetism coupled with truly mind-boggling technique made him the world’s first bona fide rock star.

Great melodies, songs and solos tend to have a “call and response” element. Some like to describe it as a “question and answer” quality. Listen to classic artists like B.B. King, Chuck Berry and Albert King for great examples of this in their vocal melodies and guitar solos.

Even more amazing is that Speed, Accuracy and Articulation was filmed in one straight take, with virtually no edits or re-takes, after a previous studio session left precisely one hour on the clock for the day. As anyone who has filmed video lessons can attest, this is simply a super-human feat of on-camera consistency and cool-headedness.

I begin in ninth position with a fairly compact shape that spans the ninth to 12th frets. At the end of bar 1 and moving into bar 2, the fret hand shifts down two frets and spreads out to cover a four-fret span, from the seventh fret to the 11th. Use your first, second and fourth fingers to fret the notes.

This riff-writing exercise will demonstrate how to create diatonic and borrowed chords based on a chromatic bass line while staying in key. For this example, I’m going to use the key of A minor and the harmonic minor scale as my guide for chord construction.

In this month’s column, I’d like to present a few single-note patterns that are designed to fortify fret-hand/pick-hand coordination while they strengthen your overall chops and ability to play fast and clean. In my own experience, I have found that drilling on one or two very specific melodic fretboard shapes works wonders in uncovering technical areas of weakness in both hands.

ii-Vs are some of the most commonly used and important chords in the jazz repertoire. It’s a progression you’ll see often as a jazz guitarist, so being able to confidently solo over these chords is an essential skill. When first learning to blow over these chords, we often start with the Dorian and Mixolydian modes over each chord, respectively.

Hello again, Guitar World readers. It’s nice to be back! I’d like to begin this new series of columns by talking about getting started with sweep picking, which is a very useful and exciting technique that I often use to perform fast arpeggio-based licks and runs.